


every good thing like love

by thisparticularlight



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-17
Updated: 2014-08-17
Packaged: 2018-02-13 13:36:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2152692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisparticularlight/pseuds/thisparticularlight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Taking care of Jim Kirk has started to come as naturally to Spock and McCoy as breathing; in the aftermath of their encounter with Kodos, however, they find that they could use some reinforcements. Winona Kirk is only too happy to help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	every good thing like love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lah_mrh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lah_mrh/gifts).



> This fic deals with the emotional aftermath of the episode The Conscience of the King - everything that happened to Kirk with Kodos on Tarsus IV and then later on Planet Q. It does _not_ explicitly depict violence or trauma.

It has been four days since their return from Planet Q back onto the Enterprise.

On the first night, they had sat together, Jim’s head in his hands, and Jim had murmured, “what a waste, my God, what a world,” and Spock had nodded, and said: “Yes.”

On the second night, Spock had kissed him, so lightly that Jim might not have felt it had he closed his eyes, except that he tries not much to do that these days, and Spock had tried to ignore the surge of disorder and unease he felt when he swept Jim’s hair off of his temple.

On the third night, Spock had asked, “Is everything all right?” and Jim had looked at him, and said: “Getting there, sweetheart,” and squeezed his hand.

Tonight, they are playing chess, and Spock is about to clinch a hollow victory against someone whose head is really, really not in the game.

“Check,” he announces, looking up at Jim, who raises his eyebrows.

“My goodness,” he says, and moves his knight over. “I better start watching my back a little closer, hmm?”

Spock takes the next few moments to deliberate. Queen to e4 is a given, but what to say next to Jim is a mystery. Finally, he decides: “You are distracted.”

“Yes.”

“Since our encounter with Kodos,” he continues tentatively. Tenderness swells up in Jim at the sight of Spock trying to balance his drive to needle and dig around until he gets the truth right with his desire to take care of Jim.

“Yes,” Jim agrees again, relaxing into this soft space that Spock has created in him. He’s willing to take the reins because he knows how difficult it is for Spock to lead in this dance, and he’s touched that he’s been willing to take them this far. “It was strange to see that chapter of my life end that way.”

“I would think that it would be gratifying,” Spock suggests, and Jim shakes his head.

“Not really. In some ways, yes. In most ways, I guess. It’s good… that he’s gone. That it’s over. That history is going to be written the way that it should.”

“But you are still unsure,” Spock prompts, seeing Jim’s thoughtful face.

“I am,” Jim acknowledges. “It was unexpected, and bloodier than it needed to be, even after everything that happened. There wasn’t any reason for him to take his daughter with him.”

“It is over,” Spock reminds gently. “There is nothing more we can change. Now, the work is to accept.”

Jim sighs. “I know. That’s the hardest part, because it’s the part I thought I had already finished, before the last week ripped it all open again.” He looks at Spock’s raised eyebrow, concern disguised as skepticism, and hurries to add: “Not everything… from before. Just… I don’t know. The same old questions. What are we doing out here, really. Why are we important, in the face of so many people who would work to undo the peace we make.”

“Those are important questions,” Spock affirms. “We begin asking them as cadets, but there is no reason we should stop asking them after we are seasoned.”

“I agree, you know I agree. I just don’t feel up to thinking about it, I guess. I don’t know, Spock, my head’s a mess. Things just… haven’t seemed right,” Jim acknowledges. “Like I’m never all here. I’m not stuck there or anything, either, I just - I don’t know. One foot here, and one foot there.”

“Perhaps you would find it helpful to attempt to meditate,” Spock suggests. Another, younger Kirk might have rolled his eyes and scoffed, but this Kirk knows what it’s like to feel trapped in a mind that races of its own accord.

“Maybe,” he agrees thoughtfully, and nods. Then he turns to smile at Spock, tight-lipped and too bright, and Spock knows it’s all wrong. “Thanks, Spock.”

“Anything,” Spock murmurs, moving the chess board aside as he pushes his fingertips toward Jim, trying to relabel the feeling marked “shyness” creeping into his mind as something less insidious, something more like “appropriately decorous restraint”.

Whatever he would have labeled it, it was needless, as Jim grabs Spock’s fingertips with his own and tugs back, so tightly at first that Spock almost raises his hands in a gesture to relax, before relaxing his index and middle fingers against Spock’s into that old familiar gesture.

“I cannot help you with what you will not share,” Spock murmurs, and Jim closes his eyes and looks up.

“I know,” he says, after a long pause. “And I can’t share what I don’t know.”

“Please consider meditating,” Spock requests, eyes locked onto Jim’s. “I can help you, if you wish.”

Jim’s smile this time is much warmer. “I’ll think about it. I’ll let you know, okay?"

“I will wait.”

+

Spock does wait. Jim doesn’t bring it up again, but he underestimates both Spock’s patience and his driving need to understand if he thinks that one week is going to wash it away.

Jim is almost completely back to normal on the bridge. His eyes twinkle when he teases Uhura, and he matches Scotty’s bluster tone for tone when he insists that he can’t give the Enterprise any more than what she’s already got. In fact, there are even moments, like when they eat lunch together, a sandwich and a coffee for Jim and a collection of almonds and clementines for Spock, where Spock believes that maybe he was reading too much into the shadows over Jim’s eyes, earlier.

But then there are other moments, alone in Jim’s quarters for a chess game or a book, when Jim is so much quieter. He’s always been thoughtful, but he’s never looked trapped, and Spock can’t stand it.

Something needs to be done.

As much as he hates asking Leonard for assistance, this is an arena in which Spock is thoroughly outmatched; and after all, he hates nothing so much as seeing Jim like this, and so he will ask the good doctor.

“The captain requires our assistance,” Spock says stiffly.

“With what?”

“His emotional state. He is still agitated from our encounter with Kodos.”

“I’ve seen it too,” Leonard agrees. “And not how I expected. I expected depression, not preoccupation. He’s fine, as far as I can see, other than how he can’t stop thinking about the meaninglessness of the vast dark universe.”

Spock raises an eyebrow. “So, then, he is not fine.”

“Sarcasm, Spock,” Leonard mutters, irritated. “We’re starting psychotherapy next week, not that that’s to be common knowledge on board, and not that I don’t think he’s already told you about it in an attempt to get out of it rather than be dragged in kicking and screaming-”

“I do not think that he will object,” Spock says softly. “Psychotherapy often proves helpful to humans who need to organize their thoughts around a narrative. Perhaps it will serve a similar purpose as meditation or other mindfulness-based approaches.”

“I hope you’re right,” Leonard sighs, and then snaps his fingers. “Hey, I just had a thought.”

“Do consider sharing it,” Spock mutters dryly, and Leonard squints.

“You’re something else, Spock,” he mutters, and Spock nods.

“Something else entirely. Doctor, has your thought completely gone out of your head?”

Leonard rolls his eyes skyward and then levels his gaze back to Spock. “My thought is that next week, when we rendezvous with your parents?”

“Yes?”

“We should see if we can’t arrange scheduling to meet up with Jim’s, too.”

Spock wants to say something testy, but realizes too quickly that this is actually a fantastic idea. He knows how much Jim loves his parents - and he knows, more importantly, that whatever ghosts Jim sees when he closes his eyes before falling asleep, his parents have seen them, too.

“I agree,” he replies. The grin that splits McCoy’s face in half is positively bragging, and Spock rolls his eyes.

“Control yourself, Doctor. Surely you’ve had ideas of merit in the past?”

“It’s that green-blooded seal of approval that gets me,” McCoy confides seriously, before the grin slides back onto his face. “I’ll get on the horn now.”

+

For a brief moment, they consider making it a surprise. This falls apart after even a few moments of consideration, though; Jim has had, Spock thinks, altogether too many surprises over the last little while.

At the next staff meeting, Spock, as executive officer, is moving through the agenda. “I have an update on our passenger list,” he says carefully, sliding the PADD over to Jim for review.

“Ahh, yes. Luxury-lining, that age-old first duty.” Jim pulls the PADD to himself, breathing through the names as he skims. “Rogers, Lundgren… Grayson,” he adds, looking up at Spock and smiling as if to say _nice_ , and then: “Kirk. Winona Kirk.” He sets the PADD down. “What’s this?”

“Just thought it might be a nice surprise,” McCoy says smoothly, “but I told her to wait to make plans until I confirmed with you that we had the time and the room, so there’s definitely still opportunity to backpedal if you don’t want her to come.”

“Why… _would_ she come?” Jim asks, looking honestly confused.

“Well, she’s in the sector, and that got me thinking… you gave up your shore leave this quarter. You deserve a vacation. God knows you’re not going to take it. So, I’m going to make you, if I’ve got anything to say about it.”

A smile spreads slowly across Jim’s face. “And so you called my mom?

Leonard shrugs. “Hey, I’m not the one who made you an unending mama’s boy.”

“Well, I appreciate your pulling some strings to support the habit,” Jim says, grinning in spite of himself as he looks down at the passenger roster, trying desperately to look like he’s occupied by ship’s business and instead just looking like a little kid.

McCoy laughs and shakes his head. “I’d like to take the credit. God knows I spend my whole life trying to find ways you’ll let me take care of you. But it wasn’t me.”

“Then…” Jim whirls around in his seat to look at Spock. “You.”

“Me,” Spock confirms. “Me.”

Spock, who has never had to look for ways to take care of Jim because they usually come to him as naturally as breathing, looks almost embarrassed now as green tinges the tops of his cheekbones.

“You did this for me?” Jim asks, in disbelief.

“I was…” Spock shifts, running his right hand across his left bicep. “I was unsure that I would be able to provide you with the comfort that I… wished for you to have. I thought Winona Kirk could help me.”

Jim stares at him for a few moments longer before shaking his head. “Luckiest captain alive,” he murmurs, looking first at McCoy, who he sometimes feels shares his head, and then at Spock, who he most of the time feels shares his heart.

“I’m not a new CMO, Jim,” McCoy replies, irritated. “I’ve served under captains before and frankly they’re useless, other than you. This isn’t something we did for our captain, Jim, it’s something we did for our friend.”

What the hell has Jim Kirk’s life become, he thinks, that this most cantankerous of humans regularly brings a lump to his throat. “Well,” he says, coughing and pointedly looking anywhere but McCoy’s face, exasperation written all over it for Jim’s lack of ability to accept their concern. “Well. What’s next on the briefing, Spock?”

As Spock looks back down onto the agenda and reads over this week’s assignments, McCoy could swear he sees a tiny smile gracing the corners of Spock’s lips. Jim has always been the crack in that Vulcan garrison - _where the light gets in_ , his grandmother’s drawl echoes in his mind - but now is the time, Leonard thinks, not bothering to hide his own grin, to let Spock have this, silently and gracefully. Now is not the time to crow over the Vulcan’s goofy smile, louder now to McCoy’s practiced ears than fireworks. And so he looks on, silently, at these two men, unable to take their eyes off each other. _And why should they_ , he thinks. _Some of us should be so lucky._

+

When Spock’s parents come on board, Sarek heads almost immediately for the briefing room to meet with Spock, one-on-one upon request, about the negotiations to take place when they reach the Rigel System. This leaves Jim and McCoy to form an ad-hoc hospitality committee of sorts to escort Amanda to the guest quarters they’ve provided for the couple.

“The nicest thing about traveling with family is that I really don’t have to think about anything,” she’s explaining, “because they’ve already done it all for me.”

Jim guffaws, knowing that feeling as he remembers all the times he’s showed up to the transporter pad before an away mission to find that Spock has painstakingly packed up his satchel, leaving no stone unturned because he wouldn’t know how.

“Spock has already scheduled out our meals for the time we’ll be here,” Amanda continues, and as she’s shaking her head she catches Jim’s eye and sees him mirroring her fond smile.

“That must be his Vulcan half,” McCoy supplies helpfully, and Amanda turns to look at him.

She regards him for a few minutes before tilting her head. “Doctor,” she says, not unkindly, “Sarek’s blood and my blood run through Spock’s veins.”

“Yes,” McCoy agrees uncertainly, and Amanda smiles.

“You could not separate the two.”

“No.”

“It is the same with his spirit.” Amanda shakes her head, regarding McCoy with the fondness that one uses to regard the friends of one’s children. “He is not comprised of two halves, doctor. He is comprised of one, whole, full spirit.”

This is the moment that Jim Kirk decides that he loves Amanda Grayson.

One day later, with respect to mothers, Spock takes much less time to decide the same.

When Winona Kirk steps off the transporter pad, her goldenrod hair is held out of her face in a clip clearly designed for utility, a happy side-effect of which is that her brown eyes come out to twinkle when she grins at the sight of him. “Mr. Spock,” she greets, her voice drenched with that same quiet sunlight that Jim gives him, freely, as if the warmth that lies deep within him multiplies each time he can share it with Spock.

That is all it takes.

“Mrs. Kirk,” he replies, and she shakes her head, smiling widely.

“No, no no, Winona is perfect,” she corrects, mouth open the slightest bit in the same wonderment that Jim uses for everything. “My God, look at this room! Constitution class, indeed!”

“Your son commands an impressive vessel,” Spock confirms, and oh, but he’s said the right thing; she turns to him with so much joy lighting her face that he hardly knows where to begin.

“Couldn’t be prouder,” she tells him, shaking her head. “Where is the old captain, anyway?”

“I cannot take you to him right away,” Spock explains, “as his shift will not be finished for another one point five hours. I can, however, show you to your guest quarters. They are next to his,” he adds, hoping that her experiences on starships will indicate just what a bit of doing this was on his and McCoy’s part.

“ _Well_ ,” she replies, and the look on her face tells him that she does, in fact, know. “Who do I have to thank for that?”

“A mostly random assignment algorithm overseen by the bridge officers who intervene when changes are necessary,” Spock replies, without missing a beat, and Winona laughs.

“Okay.”

Spock is struck, all at once, by how much Jim Kirk resembles his mother, and not just superficially. The way that Winona says _okay_ is, much like Jim Kirk, layered in multitudes: a tiny laugh rippling through the timbre of her voice; a soft look to make sure that he understands that her laugh has not come at his expense; and then, in perhaps the most Kirk gesture of all, a look away from Spock and forward into the hallway, uncertain of what will come, but ready to greet it, whatever shape it takes.

“Mrs. Kirk,” Spock begins, before:

“Winona.”

“Winona. If there is any way I can help you while you are here - anything that you need, or any question you have - please do not hesitate to ask me.” Spock has shifted his weight, just once, which is enough for Winona Kirk to know nervousness when she sees it. She wonders, knowing that this is not the first time Spock has given such a sentiment to a Kirk, how often he has worried that his offer will not be thought sincere.

“I promise,” she grins. “If I need you, you’ll know it.” The doors to her quarters open before them with a whoosh, and she steps inside. “Thank you, Mr. Spock.”

“The pleasure is mine.” He nods at her. “I am sure the captain will be here to greet you as soon as his duties allow.”

Jim Kirk does, in fact, bound into Winona’s rooms right on schedule. When he presses her bell, she barely waits for the whirring sound to conclude before calling, “come in,” and he absolutely does _not_ wait for her words to conclude before doing just that.

When he opens the door, she’s folding her clothes - Winona Kirk, for all of her impatience, is a woman who always unpacks clothes at the first opportunity while traveling, and he’s happy to see that hasn’t changed. Just now, she’s holding up an ivory blouse, ready to fold its sleeves in on themselves, but she drops it immediately at the sight of her son.

“ _Jim_ ,” she whispers, heart caught in her throat at the sight of him, because oh, but it has been a very long time.

When Spock and McCoy had first commed her, she hadn’t known what to think. Spock’s face looked pinched, although she had imagined there was a distinct possibility that it wasn’t deviated too much from the norm. McCoy, on the other hand… now McCoy, she knew, and she knew that concern didn’t live etched so deeply over all of his features, even where her son was concerned.

They had told her about Kodos, about the way that Jim’s voice had stayed strong in briefings but wavered when he was alone with either of them. They told her about the way that he wasn’t sleeping, and, less often, the way that he was - fitfully, in bursts, and never through the night before he woke up with a sharp gasp, breathing hard. And Spock, after days of trying to figure out whether there was a way to describe it without betraying the intimacy inherent to the gesture, had told her, slowly, haltingly, about what he felt now when he brushed Jim’s hair out of his eyes.

All of this has added up to Winona Kirk not quite knowing what to expect here. The Jim Kirk that came home from the last time he met Kodos was a dark remembrance that took years to heal. On the one hand, she knows that Spock and McCoy wouldn’t have left him to command a crew of four hundred people if that Jim Kirk had resurfaced. On the other… they’re calling his mother.

“How are you doing, sweetheart?” she asks now, as he crosses the room to draw her up into a bone-crushing hug. They both breathe into the hug for a few moments before he lets her go.

“Good,” he murmurs, looking down into her eyes. “All things considered, I guess.”

“Usually that means not-so-great,” she reminds him, rubbing his arm.

“Well, things are… things are a little hard right now,” he admits. “Even though it feels like they shouldn’t be.”

Winona’s indignance at the thought that Jim would be feeling anything other than exactly what he should be is palpable. “And why not?”

“Well, because… because it’s over. Kodos is dead, finally. I got through it, I had processed - or I thought I had - everything that happened on Tarsus IV, and this was the final thing that needed to happen.” He looks at her. “So why do I feel so uneasy about it?”

“I don’t know, baby.” She bites her lip. “Do you want to talk about it?”

There isn’t anything in the world that Jim would keep from Spock, as long as he knew how to give it. In this case, though, Winona Kirk is what it has taken to break through this.

And so he tells her everything, all the things he hadn’t had the words to give to Spock, because Winona doesn’t need words. She has all the touchstones Jim Kirk has grown through to fall back on: she has Jim at fourteen, coming back home and locking himself in his room. She has Jim at sixteen, fooling them all into thinking that he’s healed as he stands proud and tells George that he wants to join Starfleet, wants to make a difference. She has Jim at seventeen, slamming the door to his room and shouting through it that he’ll never join Starfleet, that he would never join an organization that built a foundation off of non-interference, off of letting people die. “What’s the _point_ ,” he had shrieked, “if at the end of the day you’re going to choose not to save them?”

Now, watching Jim talk a mile a minute, starting and orphaning a thousand sentences that she can follow anyway because his life has been pointing here since he was fourteen, she can’t help staring at all the gold. She’s always called him her golden boy: tan skin, golden hair, brown eyes. He just looks like warmth; he always has. And now he wears it just as well as he becomes it: the gold trim around his wrists, signaling that he leads these men who wear gold into war zones and peace treaties.

“The heart of it,” her boy tells her, and her own heart breaks for how earnest he has always, always been, “is that this whole thing with Kodos is tied up in why I decided to join Starfleet in the first place.” He looks at her, looking strained for the first time. “Mom, I was a…” He swallows. “I was a _kid_.”

“You were,” she agrees, tucking his hair behind his ear. “You were a little, little kid who endured a horrible thing, and it only took you a little bit to decide that you wanted to spend your life making sure it didn’t happen to anyone else.”

He snaps his fingers. “There it is.” He shakes his head. “That’s exactly why I wanted to join Starfleet, and here I am, and I know - Mom, I _know_ \- that we can’t save everyone. It’s just that seeing Kodos like that, a man who had been allowed to go free and run a damn _theater troupe_ … made me think about how much I really have accomplished. Whether I really am doing everything I could.”

She looks at him. “What do you think?”

“I think there are times I could have worked harder. Looked longer. Found the right thing sooner and made change.”

She shakes her head. “Jim. Always. There are always going to be times you can say that, but remember: the goal isn’t to use up everything you are. You don’t have to give everything. You can’t. Not to one thing, anyway.” She half-smiles. “Your dad came home every night, Jim. Because he really, really wanted to read stories to you and Sam.”

Jim closes his eyes and he can see all the bedrooms over the years that he shared with Sam. Some of them are decorated in the shades of beige and grey that came standard to ships of his dad’s era, with dashes of red and blue fabric that his mother had hung up in an effort to make it look like little boys lived there. One in particular is in the attic at the top of an old house, overflowing with mysteries from basement to rafter and absolutely perfect for playacting Sam’s captain to Jim’s first officer. The commonality in all of them is George, each night, with Sam under his left arm and Jim under his right, tracing the words with his finger: _and they danced, oh they danced, and the people thought they’d never seen such a sword dance, not in all the quadrant_.

“You’d never have been the same person without that,” Winona murmurs. “And I’m sure - I am _positive_ \- that some of the things you do off-duty play out in the people your officers become.”

He gives her back the half-smile that he learned in the first place from her. “You’re right, of course.”

“Of course.”

“It’s just harder to remember that the off-duty pieces are important, too.” He frowns. “Nobody ever gave dad a medal for reading us stories.”

“No, but they should have,” Winona says fiercely, before she quiets again. “Jim. It’s okay if being a captain doesn’t completely use you up. It’s okay to take a break. It’s okay.”

The way that Jim’s shoulders relax after he’s said everything that has been rotting inside him isn’t new. He brought this even into being a child, coming home from school anxious about the other schoolchildren to tell Winona everything over a bowl of oatmeal and smiling brightly at her after it was finished: “I feel better, Mom.”

The words echo through him even now: “Does any of this even make sense?” he asks her, looking up as if he’s honestly unsure. “I feel like this isn’t a real problem.”

She smiles. “Sweetheart, it sounds like you’re having a standard-issue midlife crisis, and what’s throwing you off is a decidedly non-standard-issue precipitating event.”

She can see the weight of everything being lifted off of him, now, but there’s one more thing she needs to address.

“Nothing’s different, Jim,” she murmurs, stroking his hair. “The story didn’t change. It just caught you off-guard to be thrust back into it.” She looks him dead in the eyes: “But you don’t need to feel guilty about being okay. Ever. Okay?”

He shifts under her gaze. “Okay.”

She squeezes his bicep. “If you ever need anyone to tell you that, you better call your mother.” She frowns at him. “Do I need to share this mandate with Doctor McCoy?”

He laughs, breathless, at how well this woman knows him. “No. I think I can remember.”

+

There’s a lot of free time built into Amanda and Winona’s stays on the Enterprise; Amanda, as a matter of course, given how long Sarek’s negotiations will take, and Winona, as a matter of Spock and McCoy not quite thinking through what she would do for the time that Jim is on the bridge, or in meetings, or any number of things that take up a captain’s time.

Amanda feels comfortable like this, the lifelong wife of a lifelong diplomat. She knows all the right words, and seems to have endless energy to take care of those who do not.

Winona feels none of this same comfort. She feels itchy, restless, and if she were on any other ship in the galaxy she would have climbed up the walls right now to land herself square in the brig - except that this is her son’s ship, goddammit, and the only thing more important to Winona Kirk than wanderlust is Jim, and so she will behave.

What this has meant, in practice, is that the two women are spending a lot of time together. Winona finds that Amanda makes the minutes feel longer, more stable, and makes the hours feel shorter.

“McCoy wants a mint julep,” Amanda observes.

“What?”

“Last night, at dinner. He was saying how badly he’d like a mint julep, but that there’s nothing for it here on the ship.”

“Synthehol,” Winona scoffs, and Amanda nods knowingly.

“He’s having nothing of it, as long as it’s replicated. And I can’t blame him.”

Winona shakes her head furiously. “Can’t touch the stuff. Not worth the headache it’ll give you, and it will.”

Amanda raises her eyebrows. “We could help.”

“No bourbon.”

“Mr Scott has some, and I'm sure we could convince him to donate, for a cause so worthy.”

Winona scoffs. “Cooking’s not my forte.”

“Mixology,” Amanda corrects mildly. “Lots different than cooking. Field testing’s lots more fun, anyway.”

Winona’s eyes narrow, and then relax. “Amanda Grayson, you sure do have a surprise or two up your sleeve, don’t you?”

“Long sleeves.” Amanda’s smile crinkles her eyes. “Let’s get to work, yeah?"

+

“You want to really muddle the mint,” Amanda explains. “It’s not really about tearing it into pieces, just about getting it just crushed enough to get it to give us that lovely flavor, do you see how I’m doing that?”

“Yes.” Winona has wondered, occasionally, how such a human woman was able to raise the Vulcan that her son loves so much. Now, watching Amanda work, it’s a little clearer. Amanda is concentrating, devoting every inch of attention to the task, but her voice is still low and mild as she invites Winona in to watch how the drinks come together. This same sense of unhurried precision permeates everything Spock does, and Winona thinks that maybe it comes as no surprise that it was afforded to him in moments as small and everyday as putting together drinks.

“There we go,” Amanda murmurs, holding the glass up to the light to inspect it and finding satisfaction in whatever she sees. She looks up at Winona and smiles. “And now, we wait.”

“Does Sarek drink stuff like this?” Winona asks, genuinely curious, and Amanda laughs.

“Not in front of the delegates,” she responds, winking. “But you should see him once we get the leftovers home.”

 _He’s different when we’re alone_ , Mom, Jim had said in the first communique, trying to explain what it was that drew him to Spock. _Or… well, that isn’t right. He’s not different, really. And I love that - he’s got so much integrity, you know? He’s the same person no matter who’s looking. It’s just that when we’re alone, I just… I just see more of him._

Winona studies Amanda, this woman who keeps a man that nobody sees.

On Sam’s wedding day, Aurelan gave Winona a necklace; a pretty, gold-leafed lacy pendant that charted the stars, so that Winona could keep Sam’s little family close to her heart no matter where they went. She’d hugged Winona, pretty as a picture in her wedding dress, and told her that nothing made her prouder than to walk into a room with Sam Kirk. “Thank you for raising him,” Aurelan had said, and Winona had nodded, tears in her eyes as she realized that Aurelan was going to love him forever.

Winona has been slowly realizing that Jim, for better or worse, is likely going to love Spock for a long, long time - maybe not forever, as forever comes at a higher premium for Jim than for Sam, but certainly as long as he’s given. She had been worried, if she’s honest, about the quiet way that Spock will love her boy; the Kirks are notoriously, historically, endlessly boisterous, Jim being absolutely no exception.

The way that the memory of Sarek lights Amanda’s eyes softens her a bit to the thought of Jim loving a Vulcan. It is not very likely, Winona thinks, that Spock will ever give her a necklace charting the stars - but he has proven that he will move them for Jim.

“Our sons love each other,” Winona says, somewhat bluntly. Amanda pours a precisely measured shot over the entire thing, checks to make sure everything is well, and then caps the bottle and turns to look at her.

“Yes,” she says, raising her eyebrows.

“Spock told you?”

“Jim did, actually,” Amanda tells her. “Spock wouldn’t ever say anything so outright emotional, at least to me. But this isn’t my first stay on the Enterprise, so I knew before Jim thought to come tell me.”

“How?”

“A mother knows.” Amanda shrugs. “And a human mother of a Vulcan son must work even harder to learn how to hear what isn’t said. Spock actually broadcasts very loudly. You just have to know what to listen for.”

“And you think it’s a good thing?”

“I do.”

“Why?”

“Because,” Amanda tells Winona. “Your son is the first time Spock has ever felt loyalty to a person, rather than an idea.”

“Ideas are important,” Winona breathes, remembering Jim coming home on the last day of tenth grade, throwing down his backpack and declaring that he didn’t want to join Starfleet.

“They are,” Amanda agrees, but she can’t take her mind off of how she’d come upstairs once, to Spock’s bedroom, and seen him sitting on his bed, looking sideways out the window at the children in the street below him. “But so are people.”

Winona smiles at that, the first false smile that Amanda’s seen from her. “They sure are. You know, I think Spock brought me here because Jim… well, he’s not having a good time, right now.”

“No?”

“No, he… went through something really hard when he was a kid, and it’s coming back for him now.”

“He’s lucky, then,” Amanda says. “To have so many people to take care of him.”

"Yes. Your son has been... has been a gift."

Amanda smiles. “I meant you.”

“I never felt like I took care of him enough,” Winona admits, unable to look at Amanda because she’s never said these words out loud. “I know he needed me, and I tried so hard to give him everything he asked for, but it never felt like I was getting it quite right.” She sighs. “In some ways, it doesn’t come naturally for me to give.”

Amanda tries to imagine Spock asking her to show him all the love she has for him; in a funny way, her abundance of gentleness, such the opposite of Winona Kirk's sprightly dazzle, has also never quite felt enough. “If it helps,” she murmurs, “giving comes naturally to me, and most of the time I still didn’t feel like I was getting it right, either.”

“You got it right enough,” Winona says, thinking of Spock’s voice over subspace: _I believe it would make him very happy to see you._

Amanda looks right at her. “So did you,” she says softly, holding up her glass.

+

Kirk winds up saying the final goodbyes to each of them, as Spock and McCoy have found themselves arguing over a sample in Sickbay. Amanda is first, setting her suitcase daintily on the transporter pad and then turning to look at him.

“Amanda.” Jim smiles at her.

“Jim.” Amanda smiles back, unable to take her eyes off of Jim’s face for thinking of all the hours Spock has spent memorizing it. “It was so, so good to see you.”

“Likewise.”

“I’m sorry we didn’t get to spend more time together,” Jim says, tilting his head. “It’s been a really quick couple of days.”

“It has,” Amanda agrees. “But try not to worry too much about it - I managed to spend a lot of time with another Kirk who’s quickly becoming quite important to me.”

Jim’s face breaks into a helpless smile at the thought of Winona. “She’s pretty great.”

“She is. A lot of you makes sense, for knowing her.”

“I’m going to take that as a full-blooded compliment,” Jim grins.

“The exact spirit in which it was meant,” Amanda confirms.

Jim takes a step forward and hugs her to him. “Travel safe, okay?”

“I will.”

“Take care of yourself.”

Amanda pulls back to look at him, not sure how to tell him that, much more than her taking care of herself, she worries about him taking care of himself, and even more about letting himself be taken care of by others. “You too, James,” she settles, hoping that the use of his proper first name will reveal her seriousness.

"I promise," he vows, and Amanda can see so much of his mother in him.

“Thank you for not ever asking me how you do it,” Amanda says, in parting.

“How you do what?”

“How you love a Vulcan man. There have not been many others before you, but the ones that exist have been unable to resist using me as a map.”

“It’s simple,” Kirk replies after a beat. “You trust.”

“Exactly.” Amanda kisses his cheek. “You have what you need.”

“No.” Jim laughs. “But Spock does. And that helps.”

About five minutes after Amanda leaves, Winona arrives, ready to leave as well. Jim flies over to her, crushing her into a hug.

“Thank you for coming, Mom.” He keeps his eyes closed, and keeps his open palm flat on her shoulder to keep her near. “You don’t know how good it was to see you again.”

Winona frowns incredulously at her golden son. “I think I _do_ know, thank you very much,” she retorts, and he laughs.

Over her head, he makes a gesture to Scotty to leave them alone, just for a second, and he knows he’ll hear it later from Scotty, as a friend to a friend, but for now, as a man to another man’s mother, he nods gracefully and steps out.

“ _Thank you_ ,” Jim repeats, whispering this time as he holds Winona so tightly that he thinks he might be hurting her if not for how tightly she’s holding him back.

“You're welcome,” she murmurs, bringing her hand up to the back of his head. “Anything. Ever.”

There’s so much that she still doesn’t know how to say, and if she’s honest with herself, she kind of hates herself for it. _We were wrong to send you there_ is on the top of the list. A close second is _you should never have had to do it_ , along with its twin: _I would have done it for you a million times over if it meant you didn’t have to_ , stemming from perhaps the most shameful of all: _we didn’t know, sweetheart. We just didn’t know_.

What she can do, for now, is hope that Jim hears those complexities when she holds him to her, so close that she can feel his heartbeat where her ear is pressed up to his chest, telling him: “I love you. I love you. I love you.”

“I love you too, Mom,” he murmurs. “You made things better.”

"You started it," she murmurs, and kisses him one last time before stepping onto the transporter pad.

Jim energizes her himself, logs it carefully into the transporter pad, and then steps outside. Scotty greets him with a sort of _everything all right?_ face, and he nods back, stunned, still, sometimes, at having found himself a life so full of people willing to ask him.

He sets off down the corridor to find Spock. They've got a chess game to finish, and it's only right that Spock beats someone whose head is back in the game.

 


End file.
